Monday, December 27, 2010

Probably for a long time I have not wasted my holidays sitting at home, but it's a surprise for me that 10days of holidays and I am sitting at home. I just proposed the idea of driving to Maidenahalli for over night camping and then a photo shoot of the black bucks early morning. Raghu and Harsha joined me for the same. It was a quick short trip.

Called up RFO Harish for permission but heard since the village had zilla panchayat elections the next day, permission was denied. However Harish heeded to our demand because of our interest and allowed us to stay at the IB by giving a letter to Tashildar asking for permission at Madugiri.

We started from Bangalore at around 4pm and reached Tumkur pretty quickly, however from Tumkur road to Madugiri is horrible. Well the better route would be to take a right from Dabaspete on the Bangalore Tumkur highway and head towards Kortagere. This road is pretty decent and also a bit shorter.

We reached Madugiri at around 6.30, took permission from Tashildar and headed towards IB. We reached here by around 7pm. On the way we were really very hungry and stopped at Puruva village for some masalapuri. Cold winter with some hot masala puri was a perfect combination for a tired soul. We had packed some food for the night, finished with it and then spent some quality time star gazing, remembered my friend Naveen who is really good at it. Planned to take him some time and learn some stuff from him. It was wonderfull experience in the open sky watching so many stars and a couple of bright shooting stars.

Raghu and Harsha picked up a room, however I prefered to stay in the tent with Jyothi. However night was not great since there was one more group of boys who were partying hard. It was surprising that RFO gave them the permission to party one day before the elections, otherwise with all respect I really appreciate RFO Harish for his work in maintaining this place and also his love for nature.

We got up very early in the morning for some good photo shoot but just like last time looks like the black bucks are very camera shy and I cannot get a good picture with my 300mm lens. However the best thing of the trip was to find some Falcons along with a couple of good picture of other birds along with the black bucks.

Team: Poorna, Jyothi, Gilli and Harsha

Route: Bangalore - Nelamangala - Dabaspete - Take a right from Dabaspete towards Kortagere - Since the road from Tumkur is in very bad shape and also its a bit long it would be better to go by this route. From Kortagere take a right towards Madugiri -- From here take Hindupura road - Kodigenahalli - Puruva Village - ID Halli

Contact: RFO Harish -- 9448731686/ Ranganath -- 8105224893

They have 2 rooms and a hall with 2 toilets and they charge 600rs for the entire stuff else 300rs for the room. However there is no facility for food, you will have to make your own arrangements for this. You can camp outside with your tents and you will not be charged anything.